Let me run you through my last few days.
A few months ago, I did 30 days without alcohol. Then I went to the UK and drank responsibly the entire trip. When I got home, I’d have a few beers during a round of golf. Nothing crazy.
Then this past weekend happened.
The golf beers turned into a stop at my bowling watering hole. The stop turned into staying until midnight. The next morning, I woke up at 9 a.m. with a pounding headache and a 10 a.m. tee time. My solution? More beers on the golf course.
Those beers led to skipping lunch. Skipping lunch led to more beers at the bowling alley. By 7 p.m., I was passed out. I slept on and off until 5 a.m., when I had to get up for work.
Most people think the worst part is the day after. For me, it’s the next three days.
Monday was brutal. I was hungover, exhausted, dehydrated, and trying to act like a functioning professional. After twenty years, I’ve gotten pretty good managing it, but hiding it doesn’t make it go away. Every conversation feels like work. Every meeting feels longer than it should. You spend the entire day just trying to get to the end of it.
Then, because I’m stubborn, I exercise anyway. I convince myself I need to sweat it out. So I grind through a workout while already running on fumes. By the time I get home, I’m exhausted enough that sleep should be easy.
Except it isn’t.
I took a Tylenol PM. It didn’t matter. I’d sleep for an hour or two, wake up, fall back asleep, wake up again, and repeat the cycle all night.
Tuesday was better, but not good. I could eat again. Work was more manageable. I even ran a board meeting. The funny thing is that I had run a board meeting during my 30 sober days, and it went noticeably better. Shocking.
The workout still felt harder than it should have. Sleep was still bad. Everything required more effort than normal.
By today, after roughly 48 hours without alcohol, I finally feel like myself again. Work doesn’t seem overwhelming. Conversations don’t feel like chores. I got on the treadmill and knocked out 30 minutes at 7:20 pace on a 4 incline.
In other words, I’m finally recovering from a Saturday night.
The timing is almost comical because tomorrow I have to wake up at 4 a.m. to catch a flight to Florida. For the first time all week, I’m actually looking forward to something.
At the same time, there’s another thing hanging over my head.
Two weeks ago, my doctor told me I have high blood pressure. One reading was 135/70. Others have been higher. I’ve changed my diet. I’ve kept exercising. I’ve tried to do the things you’re supposed to do.
What I’ve found myself wondering is whether work is contributing to it. Today, one of the Managing Directors we work with mentioned that his longtime right-hand man is in the hospital because of high blood pressure after spending forty years working days, nights, and weekends with very few vacations.
But if I’m being fair, there’s an obvious problem with that line of thinking.
I just spent several paragraphs describing how a few beers on a golf course turned into three days of feeling physically and mentally awful.
Any idiot could look at this story and say, “Look, dummy. How is this helping?”
And for some of us dummies, it takes a while.
The question I’m starting to ask myself isn’t whether work contributes to my blood pressure. It probably does.
The question is how much evidence I need before I stop pretending alcohol isn’t contributing too.
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